Biosynthesized SnO₂ nanoparticles as the effective photocatalyst for water treatment

The discharge of dye effluent from textile industries has become a serious topic of environmental pollution. As a result, there is an urgent need to treat dye-polluted water effectively so that the clean water supply can be utilized safely by humans and aquatic systems. Nowadays, the utilization of photocatalysts in water treatment is proven to be effective in that it could replace the application of expensive water treatment. Therefore, in this research article, we demonstrated the application of photocatalysts namely tin (iv) oxide nanoparticles (SnO₂ NPs) that were successfully biosynthesized using leaves extract of Malaysia Shrub, Chromolaena odorata (C. odorata). This green biosynthesis route is straightforward, easy to handle, economical, and reproducible. The purity of SnO₂ NPs photocatalyst was characterized using XRD analysis, indicating the formation of the tetragonal crystallite with the presence of three prominent peaks: (110), (101), and (211). While FTIR analysis confirmed the construction of pure SnO₂ NPs with two absorption peaks corresponding to Sn-OH and Sn-O-Sn groups at 1028 cm-1 and 603 cm-1 . The evaluation of SnO₂ NPs was tested on methylene blue dye, in which the degradation kinetic was found to follow the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The result of the photocatalytic evaluation suggests that SnO₂ NPs stand as one of the potential candidates for facilitating the treatment process of dye-polluted water, with no secondary pollutant being generated making it suitable as a sustainable catalyst.